A company that officials say has spent $5 million developing a medical cannabis facility but that still needs a state license to do business gave the media a tour of its operations in west Montgomery on Thursday.

Alabama Always LLC showed visitors the greenhouses, a processing building, and other components at its facility, which would grow medical grade marijuana and extract the ingredients to make gummies, tinctures, and other products allowed under Alabama’s medical cannabis law, passed by the Legislature two years ago.

Last month, Alabama Always filed a lawsuit against the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission over the licensing process.

The AMCC awarded licenses to 21 companies on June 12 but did not pick Alabama Always. That could change.

On June 16, the AMCC announced it had found potential inconsistencies in how applicants were ranked and said it would not issue the licenses announced four days earlier.

At a court hearing today, AMCC attorney William Webster said the commission plans to redo the license awards on August 10 after an accounting firm reviews and verifies applicant scores.

At Thursday’s media tour, Alabama Always investor Ben McNeil, a well-known Montgomery businessman and former City Council member, reiterated one of the criticisms of the AMCC licensing process, that it has been shrouded in secrecy. None of the AMCC’s deliberations on the licensing decisions was open to the public.

“We encourage that the veil be lifted for complete openness and transparency in this process,” McNeil said. “Let’s do the right thing the right way for not only the applicants, but the people of Alabama who are in need.”

McNeil said Alabama Always would employ about 30 people initially and eventually expand to 60 or more. He said the plant, on Hunter Loop Road, would be a benefit to an economically depressed area.

Greg Gerdeman, a PhD-level biologist who is the company’s chief scientific officer, led the media tour of the site, which is still under construction but has most of the major elements in place, including the concrete foundations and metal frames of the greenhouses.

Gerdeman said he has helped start or worked as a consultant for cannabis businesses in California, Arizona, Washington, Florida, and Colorado. He said Alabama Always has everything in place to begin producing the medical grade plants and products. The company applied for an integrated license, which would allow it to cultivate, process, and sell medical cannabis products at licensed dispensaries. Gerdeman said it could have products in its stores in no more than 120 days. Its dispensaries would be in Montgomery, Tuscaloosa, Birmingham, Gadsden, and Mobile.

“I’ve been around a great many medical cannabis and other cannabis companies, legal companies in this country,” Gerdeman said. “And this is poised to be a really great one.”

According to its lawsuit against the AMCC, Alabama Always has 40 investors, including 28 who have lived in Alabama at least 15 years. The company has raised $15 million and has no debt, the lawsuit says.

Gerdeman said it is disappointing that the AMCC has not visited the site to evaluate the quality of its preparations to be a cultivator and producer.

AMCC Director John McMillan said Thursday that the commission will do site visits after licenses are awarded but before they are issued. McMillan said it was not practical to do site visits for all 90 license applicants, which he said would be more than 300 sites.

McMillan defended the AMCC’s work, which has come under criticism since the licenses were awarded, and especially since the announcement about potential inconsistencies and the need to redo the evaluations.

“We have bent over backwards in every respect to be sure that everybody is treated fairly and gotten full consideration,” McMillan said. “For example, I think the average objective person would say we were crazy to score 90 different applicants. But we did that just to be sure that everybody understood where they stood when it was all said and done.”

William Somerville, an attorney for Alabama Always, said he has seen the scores assigned by evaluators to the company’s application and said they were inexplicably low. Otherwise, he said the AMCC has revealed almost nothing about the license evaluations.

“It’s still an absolute mystery,” Somerville said. “We know nothing about what happened. We know nothing about how the scores were consolidated, conformed with each other. It’s all a complete mystery. It needs to be brought out in the open.”